


Argosy

by Gileonnen



Category: Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
Genre: Accidental Aphrodisiacs, Gratuitous Classicism, M/M, Shipwreck, Survival, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shipwreck, survival, and suspiciously-shaped roots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Argosy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [julesofdenial (carinacove)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carinacove/gifts).



Consider the spar.

In its accustomed place, the noble spar is indistinguishable among its brethren; they are known only collectively, as a _ship_. No sailor worth his salary would, upon being asked the location of a missing item, exclaim quite earnestly, "Oh! It's by the _spar._" In _usual_ circumstances, in _ideal_ circumstances, the spar simply isn't a useful point of reference.

After a particularly brutal storm rends that aggregate being known as a ship into its constituent parts, though, the spar as discrete entity becomes quite literally vital.

Witness (if you can, in the thick darkness) two men clinging to what is--unmistakably--a spar.

"See the _world_, you said!" shouts one of them over the roar of the waves. "Become financially independent from my _wife_, you said! _Reconnect with my oldest friend_, you--"

"_You_ said all of those things, Bassanio," says the other, whose name was Antonio, with a calm that would have been eerie even if he weren't at the mercy of the open ocean. Stunned by accusation where he had expected self-abnegation, Bassanio shut his mouth.

Waves crashed. Thunder rumbled. The spar remained afloat.

After a moment, Bassanio looked over his shoulder and ventured, "Do you think they--"

"Probably not."

"Ah. Then they're--"

"They probably are."

A few armspans away, a bolt of silken cloth suddenly bobbed to the surface. The two men regarded it with neither particular curiosity nor particular grief, and after a moment, they left the cloth behind.

*

The morning dawned grey and rather soggy. At some point over the course of the night, Antonio had shed his doublet and his boots, as well as his hopeful illusions of rescue; Bassanio still clung to all of them, reasoning that _when_ he was rescued, he would damn well be rescued in dignity and full dress. "They're heavy," said Antonio.

"Portia gave them to me," said Bassanio.

"Just as I said."

By the time the sun broke wanly through the clouds, Bassanio was attempting to nap with his head pillowed upon their spar. He had asked Antonio to lash him to the broken wood, in the event that his somnolent experiment bore any fruit; Antonio, had complied and torn up his shirt for cloth with which to lash. He was a pessimistic soul, and reasoned that the immediate need to make Bassanio's last moments comfortable far outweighed the potential hazard of being in decent company before he acquired another shirt.

The water was generally warm, and Bassanio was generally quiet. Discounting the loss of their ship and its crew, the gnawing hunger, and the threat of imminent death, Antonio found the circumstances rather peaceful.

While Bassanio slept, the clouds cleared and the waves gentled. To pass the time, Antonio did Latin conjugations and declensions in his head. When that failed, he tried to do accounts, but found that train of thought entirely too depressing.

Sighting land, therefore, was welcome distraction.

"Bassanio." A nudge.

Bassanio shifted in his bindings and mumbled something about oysters.

"_Bassanio_." A harder nudge.

"Nnn--Portia, th' roof's leaking--"

"It's Antonio," said Antonio gently. "We're in the ocean."

"The ... the ocean ..." Bassanio blinked, raising his head and staring out at miles of irrefutable evidence. "We _are_ in the ocean, aren't we."

"But there's land ahead," said Antonio. He pointed over the waves, to the tiny smudge of dark blue at the edge of the horizon.

"There is," agreed Bassanio, carefully undoing the shirt scraps that bound him and then brushing crusted salt from his cheeks. "I've got salt dried in my hair," he observed.

"You do."

"Well." In deep contemplation of the vicissitudes of life, the ocean, and everything, Bassanio stared over the waves. At last, he heaved a sigh. "Then we should paddle."

*

Crossing the broken shells of the shore, Antonio quickly came to regret having shed his boots in the sea. He took some comfort from watching Bassanio stumble almost drunkenly across the narrow spit of sand and shell, although immediately he regretted being comforted at the other's expense and offered his (only marginally more steady) shoulder in support.

"You'll be used to land again soon enough," said Antonio; "I _have_ dealt with sea legs before," Bassanio answered tartly. Antonio braced himself to bear Bassanio's needs with good grace, as per usual.

Eventually, they reached a ridge of stones, grown sparsely over with hardy bushes and thin, spindly trees. There, they rested for a moment on a bed of low-lying plants.

The clouds had retreated entirely, and the vast blue waves reflected and inflected the endless blue sky above. Seabirds called sharply, wheeling and sailing as pale as the sand and the stone. Except for the utter absence of food, fresh water, and a swift ship back to Venice, the location was quite picturesque.

"Stay here," said Bassanio after a moment. "I'll scout for water and food."

Antonio blinked. "You'll--"

"Scout for water and food. We did learn a bit about living on the land, in the army."

Antonio politely refrained from asking whether Bassanio's credit was good with _the land_, and instead said, "Good luck." Someone, after all, had to have unrealistic hopes in a crisis, and the job was emphatically not Antonio's. He lay back, pillowing his head on his arms and his arms on the springy branches of some unidentifiable ground vegetation. As was his way, in times of despair, Antonio contemplated the events that had brought him and Bassanio to this dire pass.

The first part had been rather straightforward, really; Bassanio's new wife Portia had saved Antonio's life, through judicious application of juridical skill (and substantial cash). Bassanio, the grateful husband, then relinquished a certain ring that she had given him under a solemn oath not to relinquish it--and, having been forgiven his show of bad faith, he recognized exactly who wore the hose in their relationship. He had then commenced clinging to her like a limpet with dependency issues ... until she had eventually hinted gently and politely that he could earn her respect and her trust back by being under her thumb _at a remove_.

Given that he still owed Antonio several thousand ducats in unpaid loans, and given that he still expected himself to repay the debt even if Antonio had long since forgiven it, his proposition of a lucrative business partnership should hardly have been surprising.

This was where things began to get messy. Bassanio had been ranting--something about being tied up in his wife's purse strings--and complaining that Portia always gave him this _knowing_ look when he left Belmont even for a perfectly legitimate social excursion. "As though she knows I'm thinking about hosting parties and going drinking with my friends, and she's perfectly willing to tolerate it," he'd said, which had seemed to Antonio like an acceptable arrangement. And then all at once, Bassanio had proposed that they see the world together, sailing the Mediterranean on one of their argosies as business partners and true equals. This proposal was so absolutely the _opposite_ of standard operating procedure that Antonio had opened his mouth to laugh, and then he'd found that Bassanio's eyes could simultaneously resemble limpid pools _and_ smoulder ...

... and by the time he'd been able to process this particular mixed metaphor, but before he'd managed to analyze it, he'd been on a boat.

Until he hadn't been any longer.

Thus: here.

A voice from up the ridge startled Antonio out of his musings, and very nearly out of his skin. "We're likely a touch north of Rhodes," said Bassanio, galloping down the stones like a mountain goat (having evidently regained his land legs over the course of his exploration). "The flora's right for that part of Anatolia, at any rate. Here--you can eat these." He dropped a handful of yellowish, scaly plants into Antonio's lap; upon further examination, they proved to be flowers. He couldn't say what startled him more--their simple existence, or Bassanio's unexpected display of competence.

"You can eat them," repeated Bassanio, seeing Antonio's hesitation. "They're sweet." He held up the makeshift bag that he'd created from the remains of Antonio's shirt; it leaked dirt, and was full of mucky-looking orchids. "You can eat these, too. Further in, by the water, there's a kind of soft place where they grow. "

Antonio studied the orchids with his head tilted, as though he were examining a text in rather messy Arabic. "Eating flowers," he said, at last. "Not candied rose petals, not obscure Oriental delicacies, but flowers pulled straight from the dirt."

"Until I can make a spear, that's ... more or less what we'll do. You can think of them as Oriental delicacies, if you like." Bassanio dropped his orchid bag, as well as a little pocket tied at his waist. "I don't have a tinderbox, but there's flint and steel in the pocket. See if you can get a fire going. I'll see about fetching you some water." With that, he bounded off again.

If Antonio hadn't known better, he might have thought Bassanio was _enjoying_ this scrape. And if he had harbored such thoughts, even for a moment, he might have wondered if it was because Bassanio enjoyed not being the helpless one begging for handouts, or because he enjoyed taking care of Antonio for once in his life.

Rather dumbly, Antonio looked at the orchids, at the pocket, and then at the scaly yellow flowers.

He looked after Bassanio's retreating back.

Shrugging, he popped the flowers in his mouth. They were sweet.

*

Antonio had been a merchant since before he'd known what a merchant was. In his boyhood, he'd played quietly in the storerooms until his mother had discovered and chastised him, and in subsequent years he'd been taught to play quietly with ledgers and accounts until they read the right numbers. His parents had refused to give out loans to the numerous young gentlemen who came to beg for them--"It's one short step from credit to usury," his mother had said firmly--and as a result, they had been a highly wealthy but friendless and unfashionable family. Even when Antonio had inherited their business and disowned their lending principles, he had never known what he considered true want. His money was invested in a half-dozen floating wooden banks, and as such was always conceptually present. Antonio had _had people_ to light his fires.

As such, he had become distinctly impoverished in viable survival skills.

When he finally struck a spark from the flint and steel, Antonio gave a shout of triumph before he realized that he hadn't laid out any tinder.

By the time Bassanio returned, his doublet draped loose about his shoulders and his soaked shirt cupped in his hands, Antonio had at last managed to create a small but appreciable blaze. He gradually fed it ever-larger pieces of wood and pretended that he was feeding his own aching belly.

"Nicely done," Bassanio commented, offering his shirt. Antonio held it over his open mouth and squeezed fresh water out, swallowing again and again while Bassanio went hunting for larger sticks to feed the fire. "We can dig for shellfish when you've finished drinking," he called over his shoulder, and Antonio nodded.

Bassanio had grown up a spoiled noble, living on credit, but he had also spent four years in the military and published two treatises on natural philosophy. Apparently, soldiers and scholars trumped merchants for survival skills.

Once the fire seemed no longer to be in danger of extinguishing itself, Bassanio took Antonio to the shore and taught him how to locate shellfish by their breath-holes in the muddy sand. Together, they scraped at the wet ground with their hands, and by the time the tide began to come in and the light began to go out, they had a distinctly less floral meal than their last. Stripped to their skin, their clothes drying by the fire, Antonio and Bassanio ate their prizes raw.

Antonio tried not to notice how the firelight limned Bassanio's fine muscles faintly with gold, or how the soft hair on the backs of his arms caught the light.

Bassanio glanced down, and raised his brows.

Antonio raised his half-empty shell as though it were evidence. "Aphrodisiacs," he said.

"You're sure."

"I'm sure."

"I see." Bassanio poked the fire, and Antonio breathed out. The circumstances were already quite dire enough without an unplanned revelation of his long-concealed, less-than-entirely-Platonic (or, depending on one's perspective, _entirely_ Platonic) sentiments for the young lord of Belmont.

At length, Bassanio said, "In the morning, we may as well start south."

"You're sure that we're north of Rhodes."

"More importantly, we're north of _some_ place. Coasts tend to have fishing villages, at the very least. South's as good a direction as any."

Antonio had to concede that this was the case.

They curled up together beside their fire, Bassanio's chest against Antonio's back. "For warmth," he said, and Antonio refrained from mentioning that the Mediterranean was quite warm enough for them to sleep separately.

*

Bassanio carried his orchids by their stems, the roots dangling over his shoulder. "When these dry," he'd said that morning, running his finger along the seam between the two bulbs, "We'll be able to make all sorts of things. Puddings, flour, interesting beverages--"

Antonio had wondered, at that point, whether Bassanio was aware that the orchid's roots resembled a pair of testicles. He hadn't thought it entirely polite to ask, and they certainly had more essential concerns.

Now, they trekked southward along the coast, fortified by what bivalves they could dig up along the shore and what flowers Bassanio could discover further inland. Antonio, for his part, discovered that walking among sharp fragments of shell without boots on was no more pleasant the second time than the first.

"When we get home," said Bassanio more than once, "The first thing I'll do is I'll demand that they roast me a pig."

Or, "The first thing I'll do is drain a cask of wine."

Or, "The first thing I'll do is kneel down in the chapel and praise God."

He didn't ask what Antonio planned to do first, and Antonio didn't volunteer it; however, when they rested at noon, Antonio had decided with some certainty that the first thing he would do would be to put a cobbler on retainer, followed directly by a collapse onto a proper bed.

While Antonio picked bits of shell out of his heels, Bassanio gnawed at the bulb of an orchid and looked out to sea. "She'll have a ship out to search for us as soon as she hears that we're missing," he said. "She's very practical like that."

"No doubt," said Antonio.

"Until she finds us, though, I'll ..."

"What?"

"Nothing." Bassanio smiled, and although the man hadn't shaved in at least three days and had bits of raw shellfish in his nascent beard, Antonio found himself no longer inclined to press the matter. "I'll go look for more water." He got up and lumbered off inland, leaving Antonio alone on the shore.

_Until she finds us, I'll_ ... what? Subsist on suspiciously-shaped orchid roots and shellfish? Pine for her soft, womanly touch? Make do, in the absence of women, with the tender embraces of a lonely, middle-aged merchant?

It wasn't a sentence that bore finishing, so Antonio went to the muddy bit of the shore and dug for his supper.

*

They sat by the fire that night, each of them staring morosely into its centre. Slowly, the reality of the situation had begun to sink in: this wasn't some bracing anecdote of New World adventure, nor a titillating tale of escape and survival upon the high seas, but rather, their existence for the foreseeable future.

After a long silence, Antonio raised his voice. "Do you think it's punishment, for how hard we used the Jew?"

"I can't think why God would punish us for abusing a Jew," said Bassanio. "Especially a Jew bent on killing you."

"But the lawyer--"

"My wife."

"--your wife was right, to say that mercy is better than vengeance in God's eyes."

"And then she flattened him."

They both sat a moment in consideration of this.

"When I get back to Venice," said Antonio, "Before anything else, I'll find him and beg for forgiveness."

"I'll be just behind you," agreed Bassanio, as he chewed on his orchid root.

They curled up beside one another again, with their backs to the fire. "You don't think there are lions in Anatolia, do you?" asked Antonio.

"As far as I can tell, there are only gulls in Anatolia."

"And shellfish." On that subject. Antonio shifted in Bassanio's arms (very carefully not searching for colorful descriptors such as _corded with muscle_ or _sea-roughened flesh_), reducing contact with a body part that only Catullus could have described poetically.

"I'm sorry," laughed Bassanio as soon as he had apprehended the movement's purpose. "Orchids--they're worse than shellfish."

"You mean that they're ..."

"You've seen what the roots look like, haven't you?"

"I hadn't noticed," Antonio lied.

He lay awake for several hours, wishing he hadn't eaten so many shellfish. Or, for that matter, read so much Catullus.

*

A full week passed like this; Antonio's soles toughened slowly, Bassanio pounded his orchid roots and made salep, and they saw absolutely no sign of human habitation. Midway through the week, they called a halt, reasoning that it was Sunday and they could use whatever divine favor they could get. Afterward, they marched south again.

Antonio learned several things about Bassanio over the course of their march: first, that he cheated abominably at games of chance; second, that he had the complete works of Plautus nearly by heart and could recite them to hilarious effect, with appropriate voices; and third, that he suspected his wife of an affair--with her maid.

"They've always got their heads together," said Bassanio, tossing a stone as they walked. "More even than most women do. And they'll touch each other's hands when no one's looking, and just _look_ at each other, and it's as though an entire treatise is passing between them ..."

"You did have a mother, didn't you?" asked Antonio mildly, reaching over to snatch away the stone. "Women will gossip and keep secrets. It needn't be vulgar."

"I'm not _saying_ that it's vulgar--I'm not even saying that I'd be disappointed. In fact, if they'd let me watch, I'd be delighted." He held out his hand to take the stone back.

"I don't see the appeal," said Antonio. He placed the stone in the center of Bassanio's palm and closed the fingers over it. "If it makes you happy, though--"

With great resolution, Bassanio proclaimed, "When I get back to Belmont, the first thing I'm going to do is sweep my wife up in my arms and drag her to bed. Nerissa can come, too, if she likes."

He caught Antonio's wrist in his hand, then, drawing him close as a heartbeat. "But," he said, and his warm breath stirred the hair of Antonio's beard, "I'm not in Belmont yet."

The kiss felt absolutely natural. Their lips parted for each other; their hands caught at torn shirts and hunger-worn ribs; in minutes, they were naked and pressed close against one another.

For once, neither one of them blamed the food.

*

They had seen the white cloth of the sails even before they had known that there was a village ahead; the slim shape, shallow draft, and angled sails marked it a caravel, an explorer's ship. Upon mounting the crest of the hill, Antonio and Bassanio gazed over the caravel for long moment before they even glanced at the huddled fishing town in the bay.

The two Venetians shared a look. Then a sigh. Then, as one, they started down the hill.

"Casks of wine," muttered Bassanio.

"Cobblers," answered Antonio, grimly.

"Portia," said Bassanio; they both paused, legs poised just above a ledge of rock. "Portia," said Antonio, in a considerably different tone.

After a moment, they continued downhill.

At the caravel, they were greeted by a trim, dark-haired man with a neat beard. "I am Antonio, good men; this is my vessel," he said pleasantly. "Might you have been sailors upon the _St. Judith_?"

"We were," answered Bassanio. He cast a longing glance back up the stony slope, over the sparse bushes and twisted little trees.

"And are either of you named Bassanio?"

Bassanio raised his hand, mournfully, as though confessing a crime.

"Well!" The neat young man made an elegant bow. "What good fortune! I am in your wife's employ--she wishes me to tell you that your crew has by a miracle survived the destruction of your ship, clinging to spars until they had the luck to be picked up by a passing ship. That is, _my_ ship. We had feared you dead, though."

"Still alive, the both of us," said the more scruffy of the Antonios. "I can see that," said the less scruffy.

The three exchanged glances. After a pause just long enough to have been awkward, the young captain asked, "Are you ready to return to civilization?"

Antonio's hand crept into Bassanio's, and the sailor's face softened as he noticed. "Ah," he said, with a soft smile. "_Ah_. Remind me to tell you one day about a boy, named Sebastian ..." He shook himself firmly out of that particular reverie. "Well. If you want me to have found your bodies lashed to bits of the hull, broken and bloated in the ocean--"

"No," said Antonio, squaring his shoulders. "We have amends to make."

"Are you sure? I've seen _lots_ of floating bodies; I could describe it so well they'd never know the--"

"_No_," Antonio repeated. "Amends. We need to make amends."

"And see my wife."

"Shoes wouldn't be amiss."

"Or a goosedown mattress."

"Something that's _not_ oysters to eat."

"Very well," the sailor said, laughing, "you seem to know what you want. To Belmont, then?"

"To Belmont," Bassanio agreed.

"You can stay in my cabin on the way home, and eat from my table, and borrow my shoes," said the captain. "But on one condition."

Out of habit, Antonio's hand went to the place where his purse usually hung--but the other Antonio made a dismissive gesture. "No, nothing like that." He grinned, rather piratically. "My one condition is: I'd like to watch."


End file.
